I am ok with the new look and It works ok with both FireFox v52 on my old XP-sp3 box [the one I am currently on] and on my old Iphone SE on IOS 11.4 (whatever version Safari it is) as well as the newer boxes running Win7 and Win10. NOTE: I do not plan on trying to post here under any Win9x but being able to read the forum under older OS would be nice but have not tried it yet. Anyway: so far so good IMHO !

One of my laptops has a VOGONS thread opened from before the change. Once I refresh the page, the old design will be gone forever. I am terrified of the thought.

There is always the Internet Archive to remember the glory that once was.

Snover wrote on 2020-01-17, 20:11:

I agree with what Dominus said on this. For what it is worth, I have been monitoring theme settings of active users ever since the redesign.

This will show what people prefer, but not how happy they are with it. Τhe lesser of two evils.

Just noticed that listening to attached MP3s no longer works on my iPad.

It used to work fine on the old forum.

Snover wrote on 2020-01-17, 20:11:

The cursors are vectorised copies of the Win95 cursors, so they aren’t quite pixel perfect mostly due to antialiasing. The “clas […]
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realnc wrote on 2020-01-04, 18:15:

Is it just me, or does the forum now hijack my mouse cursor? Instead of the mouse cursor I have set in my OS settings, it changes it to a weird, thin and very small mouse cursor.

yourepicfailure wrote on 2020-01-04, 22:12:

I never noticed it until someone mentioned it.
I use the classic windows cursor, and the one on Vogons is just *slightly* off.

The cursors are vectorised copies of the Win95 cursors, so they aren’t quite pixel perfect mostly due to antialiasing. The “classic” pointer in Windows 7+ (and possibly earlier) is actually 1×2px bigger than the true original pointer for some reason.

The cursors shouldn’t be weird, thin, or small—but browsers on Windows (unlike on macOS) apparently aren’t scaling custom cursors to match system accessibility settings so I’ve filed bugs about that (Firefox, Chrome). Once those tickets get triaged by the vendors I will know whether or not a change needs to be made here, or if it will be mooted in a couple of months by upstream fixes. In the meantime you have the option to disable custom cursors in Chrome as mentioned earlier by another user, or you can use Stylus to do some overrides in Firefox:

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1:root { cursor: default !important; }
2input, textarea { cursor: text !important; }
3:link, :visited, label, select, [type=submit], [type=button], [type=file], [type=radio], [type=checkbox], .alert_close { cursor: pointer !important; }

This isn’t totally exhaustive but it should get you where you want to be for the moment until the path forward is clearer. Sorry about the trouble. I know it’s a silly feature, and, I like to have some silly features when I can get away with it 😀

Ok, so, I have to change my browser settings, run override with Stylus on Firefox, run additional accessibility features on my OS, or wait until maybe the people that maintain the browsers decide to address this "bug" just to use this one site because the individual that implemented this redesign wants "to have some silly features when I can get away with it"? Is there a reason this "silly feature" hasn't just been disabled, full stop, until these "bugs" are possibly addressed, rather than asking end users to make modifications so this "silly feature" can continue to be used which serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever?

I can't possibly be the only person here who thinks this crosses the line into ludicrous, am I?

I guess the part I find most troubling is that it is considered acceptable to ask an end user to make modifications to their system to support a purely aesthetic choice for a single site when that choice creates actual functional problems for individuals who have disabilities which are successfully addressed by those that make the software that runs the system in question, which are defeated by this aesthetic choice. At no point should this have ever been considered an acceptable solution. The first thought should have been "if anyone has a sincere usability issue with an purely aesthetic choice, that "feature" should be disabled until a solution can be implemented on the site that will prevent interference with usability while preserving that aesthetic choice" Suggesting modification of the end users system as the solution feel exactly like a slap in the face and a subsequent middle finger with someone saying "It's a problem for you? You fix it! It isn't a problem for me and I happen to like the way it looks!", which is exceptionally galling.

What makes this ever more ridiculous is all the talk of color selection, saturation, contrast, etc... for maximum usability according to various best practice and guidelines, but the desire for usability is thrown out the window when it comes to wanting to preserve a "silly feature". It paints the entire discussion of "best practices" as nothing more than a pretense for preserving the choices of the individual that implemented the redesign rather than having anything to do with providing the best possible usability of the site for the masses through the implementation of standards and guidelines.

Given the apparently sincere desire of the individual that is managing this redesign to maintain this "silly feature" and I having absolutely no desire whatsoever to make any changes to my settings to address this "issue", I will take my leave of Vogons because I find this situation, and the official response to it, unpalatable, to say the least. It has been an enjoyable nearly 7 years, which I will remember fondly.

While I agree that asking the end user to do his own mods to overcome a problem with the design is not right, this is not the case, because the “silly feature” (mouse cursors like win95), is not a serious problem, just something YOU don’t like. If it was a serious problem - like the one with the color saturation and etc etc... then you would’ve been right to complain.

In the end, its his design, its his choice, so unless the user is paying for it he has every right to defend his design and so far I’ve seen a proper defense in his arguments (the ones “full of bullshit guidelines and researches” like you would say). He has no defense for the cursors other than this being a design choice he likes and even I find it appropriate for a retro forum; the same set used in original Windows 95, I don’t remember win95 users complaining about them. I hadn’t noticed the cursor change until someone here mentioned it. I’d have never noticed so this is not a serious problem. Just accept and move on.

To sum up, the complaint about the colors causing an issue with the users eyes is valid, there is some cases where it can be seen causing problems, but complaining because you don’t like a set of mouse cursors that you’ve been using without even complaining in 1995 when Windows 95 was released? Nonsense. It’s a matter of taste, it does not hinder site navigation or cause any serious problem for the user because they are pretty much the same cursors from 30 years ago (and the same in current Windows incarnation!!!) used in every right way where appropriate. They are not an “usability problem”.

Its up to you if you want to leave the forums just because of “ugly” mouse cursors, other users have adapted themselves to it.

a website overloading the default system mouse cursor strikes me as a feature on par with background MIDI and spinning wordart gifs

but tbh I didn't even notice it until people got all fired up about it, so I don't actually care

I hate the post numbers at the bottom just give me arrows. Or make it so that posts with more than 50 pages load the last page of the post first, rather than the first page (that probably costs a lot of bandwidth anyway, when people open a thread just to go to the last page).

It seems weird to do a site redesign for something related to nostalgia.

On my 4K laptop display your cursors are the tiniest. Why do you even have cursors? Is the site going to start playing tada.wav when I open it now?

furan wrote on 2020-01-18, 23:13:

On my 4K laptop display your cursors are the tiniest. Why do you even have cursors? Is the site going to start playing tada.wav when I open it now?

Snover, I want that! TADAAAAAAA 😁

bfcastello wrote on 2020-01-18, 23:41:

Snover, I want that! TADAAAAAAA 😁

Accompanied with a "You've got mail" whenever there is a notification.

schmatzler wrote on 2020-01-19, 01:58:

bfcastello wrote on 2020-01-18, 23:41:

Snover, I want that! TADAAAAAAA 😁

Accompanied with a "You've got mail" whenever there is a notification.

And a BSOD or GPF screen for deleted topics/404 not found pages, a chime sound for when you log out or leave the forum!

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-01-18, 22:45:

a website overloading the default system mouse cursor strikes me as a feature on par with background MIDI and spinning wordart gifs

but tbh I didn't even notice it until people got all fired up about it, so I don't actually care

I personally don't care either, but I can understand how it would make the site harder to use for people with poor eyesight who need a big cursor, or people who use hidpi screens.

By the way, you can disable custom cursors on all website with Firefox by putting the following in your chrome/userContent.css:

1body * {
2        cursor: default !important;
3}
4body a {
5        cursor: pointer !important;
6}
7body input {
8        cursor: text !important;
9}

bfcastello wrote on 2020-01-18, 22:33:

... the “silly feature” (mouse cursors like win95), is not a serious problem, just something YOU don’t like.

I guess you haven't read all the posts of people with poor eyesight or other visual impairments that have made comments on this topic. They use big cursors to be able to see it properly and the website overrides that accessibility feature with a tiny barely visible cursor.

bfcastello wrote on 2020-01-18, 22:33:

If it was a serious problem - like the one with the color saturation and etc etc... then you would’ve been right to complain.

It seems to be a serious problem for a lot of people indeed. Just because it doesn't cause problems for you doesn't mean it's just something that people "don't like".

Snover wrote on 2020-01-17, 20:11:

imi wrote on 2020-01-04, 12:10:

schmatzler wrote on 2020-01-04, 10:24:

We have smartphones and tablets now and these don't have a lot of space, so we need to use this space in the best possible way.

that is why mobile versions exist, no reason to butcher desktop usability for that imo.

You can have a small screen with a fine input device (phone or PDA with stylus), and you can have a big screen with a coarse input device (laptop with touch screen). “Desktop vs mobile” is a false dichotomy since there are actually two axes involved (screen size and input mode). “Mobile versions” are typically created when people don’t understand this distinction. Does an iPad get the “mobile” version with low information density and missing features, or the “desktop” version which has unusably small buttons? Does a Microsoft Surface get the “desktop” version because it’s a laptop, or the “mobile” version because it’s got a touch screen? Does a foldable phone get the “mobile” version because it’s a small screen when it’s folded, or does it get the “desktop” version because it’s a big screen when it’s not? Responsive design works for all classes of device all of the time. Separate “mobile versions” do not.

FWIW, I totally disagree. That is least common denominator rationalization. If you are using your thumbs on a forum, you just signed up for the mobile version. If you have a mouse and keyboard, you should have a design complementary to the precision of those tools. Tablets and phones and TVs all have huge problems with (normal) information density. It's a design flaw of those devices, if they were designed with web pages in mind. Call it a "touchscreen version" or "small screen version" if that somehow changes the logic behind it. The best design is the one that presents the information best, not the one that is most usable across completely incompatible devices.

-

Mouse - I was ignoring it, since it looks identical, but I carefully inspected, and yes, the cursor gets smaller on VOGONS. Not really sure how that's a positive, I get the idea, but that kind of thing has been frowned on since the early days of the web. I use the "none" mouse scheme in XP; apparently it has the 1x2px bigger version too. Stuff's tiny enough in high resolution, eh?

No one misses the text tool? (cursor not changing to "I"when hovering over text).

I never noticed the cursor thing actually, it seems like my browser settings don't even allow that, though I am not sure what setting or add-on that might be, enabling or disabling javascript doesn't change it.

konc wrote on 2020-01-20, 10:03:

No one misses the text tool? (cursor not changing to "I"when hovering over text).

That's addressed in this post bij Snover: Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Cyrix200+ wrote on 2020-01-20, 10:56:

konc wrote on 2020-01-20, 10:03:

No one misses the text tool? (cursor not changing to "I"when hovering over text).

That's addressed in this post bij Snover: Re: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Thanks, I've missed that one. So the changed cursor also has side effects.

konc wrote on 2020-01-20, 10:03:

No one misses the text tool? (cursor not changing to "I"when hovering over text).

Just one more issue caused by the custom cursor.